Fifty-thousand youngsters ‘fell off radar’ in pandemic

Warning that vulnerable children who went ‘missing’ may suffer the same fate as Arthur

ALMOST 50,000 vulnerable children “dropped off the radar” of social services during the pandemic, The Daily Telegraph can disclose, amid fears more could suffer a similar fate to Arthur Labinjo-hughes.

The six-year-old boy was murdered by his father’s partner, Emma Tustin, 32, while his father, Thomas Hughes, 29, was convicted of his manslaughter.

Arthur was poisoned with salt, subjected to beatings, denied food and drink and made to stand for hours alone in the hallway, before finally suffering a fatal head injury at Tustin’s home in Solihull in the West Midlands last year.

The case drew condemnation from the Prime Minister as well as the Children’s Commissioner and charities who demanded that more action be taken to avoid missed opportunities so other “children do not drop off the radar”.

However, analysis of Government data by this newspaper shows that the number of new referrals – a request for services to be provided by children’s social care – dropped by 45,220 between the year ending March 2020 and the year ending March 2021.

The figure fell from 642,980 referrals to 597,760 – marking the lowest point since records began in 2013.

In 2019, the most recent year that does not include any data from the pandemic, the number of referrals was 650,930.

The Department for Education said that the dramatic reduction “was driven by a fall in referrals from schools” and experts believe the “missing” children may still be in need of help but have not been identified.

Schools were closed for months during the first lockdown. When they reopened on June 8, Arthur did not return.

Tim Loughton, the former children’s minister, said that the pandemic put Arthur and other children at increased risk. He said: “There was an increase in child abuse because, of course, they were off the radar. [It] was all going on behind closed doors.”

Analysis of the data also reveals that the number of rereferrals, where a child has been referred within 12 months of a previous referral, also decreased and is at its lowest point since 2013. For the same period, the number of referrals dropped from 145,390 to 135,850.

The NSPCC described the figures as “stark” and have prompted fears that tens of thousands more children could be “at risk of malevolent adults”.

Dame Rachel de Souza DBE, Children’s Commissioner for England, said: “I responded to the details of this horrific case as anyone would, with shock, and revulsion.

“We need systems that hear the voice of a child, a child [able] to articulate the abuse they were suffering, and to be heard. We need repeated concerns raised by families to be taken seriously.

“[That] a six-year-old should be killed after such [sustained abuse], and that his killer, his step-mother, should have recorded his suffering, with not a shred of protection offered from his own father, indeed responsible for abuse himself, beggars belief.”

The comments come as Boris Johnson described Arthur’s case as “appalling” and said that the Government will “leave absolutely no stone unturned to find out exactly what went wrong”.

Speaking on a by-election campaign visit in Oswestry, Shropshire, the Prime Minister said: “I just want to say on the tragic and appalling case of Arthur Labinjo-hughes, like many people I find it hard to read it, let alone to understand how people could behave like that to a defenceless little child.

“[I’m] glad that justice had been done, in the sense that they have both received tough sentences, but that is absolutely no consolation, and what we’ve got to make sure now is we learn the lessons about that case, we look at exactly what happened, what else could have been done to protect that child.”

An independent serious case review, expected to be published next year, will look at the circumstances of the “terrible tragedy”, including the actions of Solihull council’s social services.